How We Parent Thousands of Children

Oh how I loved this post by Ann Voskamp(Holy Experience). If we all truly would grasp parenting how God intended it to be, how differently an entire culture would view children! To remember that we're not just raising one or two of our own kids, but generations of children to come. To be able to put this into perspective, we would be able see past the temporal work of the day, and persevere for the lasting work of eternity.

“Seeds and dirt. Isn’t that what we are, really?
Seeds planted deep into loam, growing, living, dying, dust returning to dust, new seeds planted.
I reach down and touch her silken hair, touch all the children within her to come, and think of Abraham and Levi before Levi even yet was… and yet he was:
“Because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor,” reads Hebrews 7:10.
The New Living Translation offers,“For although Levi wasn’t born yet, the seed from which he came was in Abraham’s body…”
Inside the frames, the bodies, the souls of our children, reside the children still to come. And the children then still to come.
Like nestled dolls, future generations dwell within the child whose eyes I now look into, whose hands I now touch.
Every day we parent not one child, or even a few children, but every day we parent innumerable, countless children. When I raise my voice, frustrated with a child, I speak to generations of children. When I wipe away a tear, comfort, listen, I honor centuries of children.
When we meet our children, children we will not live to meet on this earth, are, in very real ways, met, shaped, formed. Parented.”
From: Holy Experience
http://www.aholyexperience.com/2009/04/how-we-parent-thousands-of-children.html
I thought it would be good to end in this quote from Word Warrior on Generation Cedar,
She says, “When I raise my voice, frustrated with a child, I speak to generations of children. When I wipe away a tear, comfort, listen, I honor centuries of children.”